Comedy in chaos

The costumes and scenery are as grandiose as the protagonist's massive ego. The comic lines and physical humor require exquisite timing.

Tony Sauro

The costumes and scenery are as grandiose as the protagonist's massive ego. The comic lines and physical humor require exquisite timing.

Then there are the penguins, ant farm, 10,000 cockroaches, giant mummy case and cross-dressers playing roles in what director Adrienne Sher called a "screwball comedy."

So, it didn't help when a power outage short-circuited Sunday's first dress rehearsal of Delta College's kookily retro new stage production.

No matter. Steve Minow and Brooke Martin are ready.

"I'll just throw caution to the wind and let the performance come out," said Minow, the center of attention in "The Man Who Came to Dinner," which he and a 21-member cast perform tonight through Sunday at the Tillie Lewis Theatre. "I think I'll be fine. We still have three nights."

"I'm obsessed with my costumes," said Martin, who gets to dress up like 1930s Hollywood divas. "I feel like a movie star. It's very 1940s."

The three-act, 85-minute production is one of those wild-and-crazy, slamming-door comedies.

"It's an opportunity for ... students to play multiple roles," said Sher, an adjunct director from Sacramento City College. "Some across gender lines. There's a good deal of physical humor. The timing needs to be real crisp."

Written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the play first was staged in 1939. The model for Minow's character (Sheridan Whiteside) was Alexander Woollcott, a radio host and theater critic "famous" for his Christmas show.

The premise, based on an actual incident: Whiteside slips on ice while going to dinner at an affluent - yet star-struck - Ohio family's home during the Christmas season. A pompous, arrogant blowhard, he threatens a lawsuit and completely commandeers the house during his over-extended convalescence.

Martin plays his long-suffering secretary (Maggie Cutler). Romantic jealousy and a poorly written play intrude.

"He's very acerbic," said Minow, 48. "He says what's on his mind. He uses very flowery language. That's pretty far removed from me."

It's the same for Martin, 22, a graduate of Lodi High School and Santa Maria's Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts.

"She's a hard-bitten old cynic," Martin said. "I look really, really young. My last few roles were 13- and 14-year-old girls. Maggie's supposed to be 30. They're giving me super-dark eyebrows and a lot of makeup to age-ify me."

Other cast member are being re-genderized.

"You can't take a 20-year-old and paint her hair white so she can play a 60-year-old," Sher said. "It looks silly. So, the older women are played by men. It's easier to believe a man in drag than a very young woman with age makeup."

A mummy case, an ant farm, cockroach city, a case of penguins, a Christmas tree and "high-style gowns and furs" are among Sher's "tons of props."

"If only for the costumes and set, people should see it," Minow said of '30s-era designs by Evin Sanna Yadegar and Kevin Bautch. "It should be quite stunning."

Sher moved her setting to 1940 and modernized some of the slightly obscure name-dropping in the original text.

Minow, a Sacramento native, began his theater, music and comedy baptisms after playing a role in "Oliver" at 13: "I got bitten by the acting bug. I'm what you call an outcast."

He kept getting cast at Rio Americano High School, Sacramento State University and the University of Arizona. He worked in sales and pursued an acting career - "struggling and surviving" - for eight years in New York and 30 months in Los Angeles before returning to Sacramento in 2007.

Minow has acted in Music Circus productions and was nominated for a Sacramento-area Ellie Award ("The Drowsy Chaperone" at Runaway Stage Productions). He's been assisting Sher with her student actors.

"I'm trying to be a good example as a person who's been out acting for years," Minow said. "Working with students is great. It's been wonderful. I'm having a great time. We give each other a lot of energy."

She's also tried serious Shakespeare ("Romeo and Juliet") and Anton Chekhov ("Three Sisters") and plans to do one more Delta production. Then, she's off to Los Angeles: "My No. 1 goal is to find an agent, hit the pavement and audition, audition, audition."

Though she's "more known here for drama," Sher, 51, is having a kick. "Screwball comedy has a very distinct rhythm. You have to go really fast and create huge controlled chaos. When you see it all and hear it all, it gives the impression it's out of control."